


lines drawn in mercury

by deniigiq



Series: Pigeon and Crow [3]
Category: Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Injury, Boundaries hello what are you? Johnny needs your number, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Teen Romance, of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27309556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniigiq/pseuds/deniigiq
Summary: A sharp sound followed by a slow-growing ache in the jaw.Johnny had lifted his head to find nothing. No one. Emptiness sat where Peter’s body once had, already giving up what was left of his heat to the air.(Peter reacts poorly to his and Johnny's first kiss. Johnny is left reeling and trying to understand what's just happened. He sets out to make things right.)
Relationships: Ben Grimm & Reed Richards & Johnny Storm & Susan Storm, Johnny Storm & Susan Storm, Peter Parker & Johnny Storm, Peter Parker/Johnny Storm
Series: Pigeon and Crow [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993912
Comments: 24
Kudos: 510





	lines drawn in mercury

**Author's Note:**

> there are references to child abuse and CSA in this piece. They are not graphic, but there is some discussion of injuries that might be for folks who have feelings about teeth. Please do what you need to to take care of yourself. 
> 
> This piece dovetails with **as candy to rabbits** which you might want to read before this one, even if it's not strictly necessary.

His hair was dark and messy; it fell in waves and half-halos all around his head and into his eyes.

Those eyes were brown—not like food, not like honey, but like the stone that Sue had placed in the center of Johnny’s hand a few years ago.

Tiger’s eye, she’d called it.

Some people thought it brought good luck to its owner.

Peter carried his around in his irises. They shone amber and bark and sunset and, in the middle of it all was the darkness of a cave.

Peter had freckles and uneven lips. His bottom one stuck out a little more than the top and made him look like he was always pouting. The weight of his eyebrows didn’t help that. The sharpness of his chin and the softness in his cheeks did, though.

They made Peter look young. Younger than he was.

And scared.

Maybe as scared as he was.

Sue felt bad about the whole thing with Peter. Johnny could tell by the way that she called him by his real name instead of his moniker the way that Ben and Reed did.

It wasn’t wrong to hear her say the name—just strange.

Calling Spidey ‘Peter’ felt weird in general. In the mask, he was so languid and easy-going. He’d settled in next to Johnny and his thigh, where it had met Johnny’s own, had been so warm.

But lower to the ground, the name fell from the air when Johnny or anyone else spoke it.

It was like it was heavy. And it sort of was. Peter was a biblical name after all. Benjamin was, too. The jury was still out on ‘Parker,’ but Johnny thought that that was probably some kind of small blessing for Spidey. For Peter.

He was holding up a lot of Bible there with the first two.

Ben said that he thought that Spidey was holding up a lot of Bible in general. He kept asking Johnny if Spidey was orthodox, but Johnny didn’t know how to tell. He didn’t think so. Peter’s hair fells in waves and half-halos, but not in long curls.

Ben never seemed to actually do anything with this information after Johnny gave it to him anyways; he nodded and forgot it immediately as he went about his business making fun of Reed.

But it made Johnny think.

What if Spidey— _Peter_ , Johnny had to practice this _—_ was religious?

Maybe that was where Johnny could find him now?

He started with a few synagogues in the area before remembering after the third one that Spidey didn’t live in Manhattan. He lived in Queens.

Duh.

Okay, rerouting. Let’s go, Torchy, we can do better than this.

There were a few synagogues in Queens and a handful of community centers for Jewish folks. Johnny decided he’d peek his head around there and asked around if anyone knew a guy called Parker.

The people at the first synagogue hadn’t heard of anyone of that name, and the second one was closed for the night, so there was no dice there either. But this one center had warm yellow windows and, from the outside, looked a little like a school. The people inside were surprised to see Johnny and recognized him straight away.

He asked as quietly as he could in the empty halls if they knew someone called Peter Parker.

A woman who’s hair fell all down her shoulders and back tapped a finger against her cheek as she flicked her eyes over to meet those of the woman sitting at a low folding table next to her.

They knew him. They knew Peter.

“Why do you ask?” the darker-haired lady at the table asked.

Johnny fidgeted.

It was hard to explain.

“We met a while ago,” he admitted. “And I thought we were friends, but then he just left? Just stopped talking to me. I thought maybe I did something wrong, so I think I wanted to apologize. Or something.”

They’d kissed.

Peter’s uneven lips on Johnny’s own. Soft and a little cold from the early spring chill.

It was still cold out.

Peter had smelled of that cold and of something that wasn’t quite a tang or a spice--something like wood bark. Johnny’s hands had cupped his cheeks and he’d started to open his mouth and just like that—it was all over.

A sharp sound followed by a slow-growing ache in the jaw.

Johnny had lifted his head to find nothing. No one. Emptiness sat where Peter’s body once had, already giving up what was left of his heat to the air.

He’d vanished. Johnny’s face hurt.

Spidey could land a hit, that was for sure. Johnny was lucky that this one had been open-handed. He was lucky not to have been thrown off the roof.

But he didn’t feel lucky or triumphant or anything like how he usually did when he pulled away from the girls from school with strands of their hair caught on his lips and eyelashes.

He felt cold.

It started sinking into the fabric on his legs and then more and more into his shirt and until finally, when he looked back out to the lights flicking on in the city, one by one, he felt in it his lips.

It had spread to his heart by the time he’d gotten home.

Sue stroked his hair when she found him at the table; she’d asked him quietly what had happened. Johnny had blinked tears from his eyes and said that it was nothing, but Sue knew things now and so she pulled up a chair and sat down and kept dragging her hand through the knots and tangles.

Sue told him that it was wrong for Peter to have slapped him. She said that it was wrong, but she didn’t think that he’d done it because he was angry with Johnny.

She said that he sounded like he was a skittish boy all over, although Johnny didn’t know what that meant.

She said that it was hard to explain, but some people had a harder time than Johnny did in understanding what they were feeling. Some people didn’t have words to describe things like that, and they didn’t know how to make stuff they weren’t comfortable with stop happening, so they used the language that they had.

She thought that Peter had, over time, maybe become a little frightened of adults and other kids. When Reed came into the dining space and noticed them talking, she said--more to him than Johnny--that she thought that Peter had a tendency to analyze people to try to figure out what he needed to do or say to make them leave him alone.

Reed sat down with them and didn’t touch Johnny, thankfully. He said that he thought that maybe being Spiderman had led Peter to withdraw into himself. He pointed out how when any of them on their tight F4 team got hurt, they went and found each other and helped to get each other to safety, then noted that Peter’s family was little.

Really little. It was just him and his auntie. And while his auntie was super nice and had a wide, wry smile, she wore scrubs. Reed and Sue said that nurses sometimes spent so much time looking after other people that they didn’t come home until late. Reed thought that, even though Mrs. Parker clearly knew about Spiderman, Peter probably hid what he could from her.

Broken bones, maybe. Definitely bruises. Probably the oozing, then rushing sickness that came with being punched in the head, too.

Peter probably slept through a lot of it or pretended that nothing was wrong when she came home from work.

Sue and Reed never outright said it, but Johnny could tell that they thought that Peter was acting like this because he was an abused kid.

But that didn’t make sense.

Johnny was technically a victim of child abuse, too--if anyone ever took the time to actually think it through. The only difference between him and Peter was that Johnny was a professional child abuse victim. He was expected to take the hits--but he wasn’t scared of people. He didn’t slap folks, and he didn’t spend all his time hiding up high with all kinds of birds and bugs and the like, now, did he?

Sue didn’t have an answer for him there.

Reed said that Johnny had no idea how special and different he was from other kids. He got quiet and said that when he’d gone to talk to Peter on his own last Christmas, Peter had started to tell him anything he thought he wanted to hear to get him to leave.

Anything. Literally, anything.

He asked Johnny what had happened right before Peter had vanished.

Sue had never had a problem with Johnny liking boys. She’d locked him in a room after he’d told her and had made him watch a billion videos about how to use a condom and have safe sex. Then, in a fit of kindness, she’d let him out for a snack before locking him back in the room to learn a thousand other things about gay sex that he hadn’t even known he’d needed to know.

She didn’t react when Johnny told her and Reed (but mostly her) about the kiss.

Johnny explained faster than his mouth could keep up with that he’d done everything right—he’d asked, he’d waited, he’d let Peter decide if he was cool with it, and then he’d gone as slow as he could without making things weird.

And yet?

And _yet_?

Sue made eyes at Reed, who chose that moment to be as awkward as humanly possible.

“Maybe he’s not gay?” he tried.

Johnny stared at him.

“He stole my coat and laid in my lap, Reed,” he said flatly.

“Johnny—”

“I asked him, and he said okay. _He_ said okay.”

“Johnny, kiddo—”

“Clearly he was thinking about it, too. He could’ve backed out at any moment and—”

“Johnny,” Sue interrupted before Reed could again. “Sometimes, people don’t know what they like and what they don’t until it’s already happening.”

That wasn’t fair.

To anyone really.

“I know,” Sue said softly. “But it’s not your fault or his fault if Peter decided that he doesn’t like to be touched or kissed.”

“By me,” Johnny added bitterly.

“By anyone,” Sue corrected. “You don’t know if it was you.”

Reed was making bad faces again. Johnny glared at him.

“It’ll be okay,” Sue said, standing up. “Give Peter his space. I’m sure he’s good and freaked out about everything.”

Reed got up too fast and nearly knocked his chair over. He stuttered while he agreed with Sue. Johnny kept glaring at him.

He didn’t like it. Whatever it was Reed was thinking, it wasn’t good.

“Time and space,” Reed said with a fake cheerful finger. “Space and time. Tools that the universe has given us to help us love each other.”

Johnny blinked.

“I’m going now,” Reed decided.

Sue and Johnny watched him scramble out of sight down the hall.

Peter did go to that community center after all. The ladies both knew him. They’d even seen him recently. They said that his highschool wasn’t too far from there, actually, and that Johnny might have better luck asking other kids there.

But it was nighttime and school wasn’t open, so Johnny had to give in to the dark and call it quits.

Sue asked him where he’d been when he got home and he said ‘out.’ She told him that she _knew_ he wasn’t being a weird stalker.

Johnny almost dropped his coat.

He wasn’t, he ensured her. He was just trying to figure out where Peter might be so that they could talk about things and go back to being whatever it was they were before all this happened. He wanted to promise that he’d never, ever, ever kiss Peter again.

He wouldn’t even look at him like that.

He would be only a friend. The best friend. The best friend that Peter had ever had.

Ben put his whole face into his hand at the table and made a sound that Johnny chose not to decipher. Sue, on the other hand, turned off the stove with eyes sharp enough to cut glass.

“You’re leaving him alone, remember?” she said. “Starting _yesterday_.”

“But we’re meant to be together, Sue,” Johnny moaned, “Obviously. Look at us. We’re the only teenage superheroes for _miles_.”

“Johnny, you can’t make people be friends with you,” Sue snapped. “As much as you want it, Peter has to want it, too. And he’s telling you that he doesn’t want it.”

That wasn’t true.

Peter had been totally fine up to the kiss. It was the kiss that had made things weird. That was the turning point. So if Johnny could undo that tangle, then they would be okay again.

“Johnny.”

“What??”

“You’re not listening.”

He was, though. He’d given Peter time and space. Space and time. Like, a whole week’s worth. If he gave him any longer, then things would go back to how they were before—before all of this, and he—they—Peter—

“Alright, Sue, I got it,” Ben said out of nowhere. “C’mere Sir Bratticus, let’s talk.”

Ben took him to the gym and handed him a dumbbell apparently to ‘ground’ himself with.

“Listen, Johnny. This is me bein’ serious, alright?” Ben said, as he picked through his collection of gym-bro equipment. “I know you like this kid—”

“I can not-like him, too, you know. We can just be friends, you know,” Johnny pointed out.

Ben’s eye twitched and his fingers curled a little bit. Johnny backed off and glared at the dumbbell.

“This is me-talking time,” Ben said stiffly. “You’ll get your turn. I’m being _real_ with you.”

What did that even mean, ‘real’?

“You said Spidey told you that was his first kiss?”

Well, sort of. He hadn’t said that really, but he’d gotten quiet and blushy and had let Johnny take the lead, so?

Ben let out a big breath.

“So he never actually said that it was,” he asked again.

“I guess technically no,” Johnny huffed.

Ben dipped his head and let out another big breath, almost a sigh.

“Kid, the reason you don’t push these things is because you never know if silence is really a ‘yes.’”

Ice flooded the base of Johnny’s spine.

“Are you—”

“No. Shut up. Me-talking time, remember?” Ben snapped. “I’m not sayin’ you’re pushin’ this boy anywhere he don’t want to be, alright? I’m _sayin’_ that you never, ever know what someone’s been through in their past. And you never, ever know if someone saying nothin’ is them saying ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ do you get me?”

Peter—Peter didn’t—he was—no. He was fine. This wasn’t that.

“You don’t know that, Johnny,” Ben said almost hoarsely. “You don’t know actually know that. And until you know 100% for sure know that Pete’s had the same kinda experience as you with sex things, then you can’t assume that he has. Imagine, just for a second, that this ain’t Peter’s first rodeo, yeah? Imagine that someone took advantage of him bein’ quiet and skittish before all this, huh?”

Johnny’s eyes suddenly felt hot. His fingers clenched on the edges of the dumbbell’s top.

“How do you think he’d feel when he’s put in another situation where someone’s asking him to do something he ain’t feel like he can say no to?” Ben demanded.

Terrible.

Horrible.

Johnny could feel this pretend-Peter’s heart jackhammering away, faster and faster in quiet panic. He could feel it in his own chest.

“Don’t be that guy, Johnny,” Ben warned. “Guys like that are the lowest of the low. Lower ‘n dirt, you hear?”

Yes.

 _Yes_.

God, had he fucked up?

“Come here, kid, it’s okay. You didn’t mean it like that, we all know.”

Johnny shook himself and batted the arms away before they could touch him. He put his hands back onto his temples and tried to think, think, _think_.

He went to bed without dinner and ignored Sue’s calling and the knocks at his door later.

He felt sick.

He wanted to puke.

He wanted to cry.

He wanted to say sorry more than he ever had in his whole life. This? He knew this. People looked at Johnny—people in the street and online said things about Johnny that made him want to curl up into a ball and cover his ears and never open them or his eyes again.

He didn’t want Peter to have to here or look at him either if he’d thought that—if he’d—

Maybe a text.

Yeah.

Let’s start with a text.

**JS:** hi peter sorry it’s been a minute since we’ve chatted, I thought maybe you weren’t feeling so hot

 **JS:** hey listen

 **JS:** about what happened

 **PP:** do you know how a splint works?

Johnny jerked back in surprise on the message on the screen between his thumbs.

**JS:** sort of? Are you okay?

 **PP:** sort of.

 **JS:** is something broken?

 **PP:** not sure.

 **JS:** is it something of yours?

 **PP:** google isn’t super helpful rn I think I’m gonna ask someone else thanks

Wh—

What?

**JS:** WAIT what happened are you okay???

Nothing.

Great. Perfect. Now Johnny was worried on top of feeling like a scumbag. That was just what this night needed.

HHHHNG.

**JS:** Peter?? Spidey??

 **JS:** are you there?

In the morning there was one new message on his phone.

‘Situation resolved,’ Peter said.

That was it. That was all.

Fuck.

Alright, well, a text was a text was a text, so like, maybe there was hope here if Johnny just kept chipping away at it from a distance?

It was worth a shot. It wasn’t like he had many other options at the moment.

It took a few tries. Most of the messages went unread, until that Tuesday, when a chirp finally answered him back, and it wasn’t from any of his group project members from school.

**PP:** hey!

Wow, so chipper. What was the occasion?

**JS:** you’re in a good mood

 **JS:** what’s up?

 **PP:** you asked first 😊

Oh no. He was still cute.

**JS:** not much. just hadn’t heard from you in a bit?

 **PP:** hey were you in queens this week?

Fuck. Rerouting. Go back. Go back. Go back.

**JS:** maybe?

 **PP:** I thought so. Shoshana from the community center asked me about you

Kay, good to know that it was a Tuesday that Johnny would be dying on, then. He was positive that there was something poetic to be found about passing away before hump-day. Someone somewhere must have handled that one, right?

**PP:** I’m not mad

WHAT?

**JS:** you’re not???

 **PP:** I mean not really. it’s pretty weird tho

 **JS:** IM REALLY SORRY

 **JS:** YOU LEFT AND I COULDN’T FIND YOU SO I PANICKED

 **PP:** lololol

 **PP:** so you went to the synagogue?? I’m not that kind of jew man

 **JS:** WELL HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW??

 **PP:** adsf;ahdfa Did you think there’s only one kind?

 **JS:** two!!

 **PP:** two??

 **JS:** orthodox and not

 **PP:** ADAFalsdfasdfasdfasf

 **PP:** I’m a secular Jew. We do holidays and guilt.

 **JS:** oh

 **PP:** and Hebrew school for a little while ig but ehn

 **JS:** I feel so stupid

 **JS:** they know you pretty well tho?

 **PP:** yeah I do the pictures for their newsletter

 **JS:** pictures?

 **PP:** mmhm

 **JS:** is that your job?

 **PP:** uh

 **PP:** not for them. But I mean yeah, for another place it’s my job.

Peter worked? How?

**JS:** I thought you went to school

 **PP:** yeah and I work

 **JS:** and you spiderman??

 **PP:** what can I say? I’m a talented guy

 **JS:** I worked on 1 robot a few months ago and nearly failed calc. you’re AMAZING

 **PP:** asd;fhasdfa that’s funny

Johnny was going to cry. Peter still thought he was funny.

**JS:** can we do real talk for a sec?

 **PP:** absolutely not

 **JS:** do you mean that or is that sarcasm?

 **PP:** I don’t know.

 **PP:** I’m sorry.

 **PP:** are you mad?

NEVER.

**JS:** just surprised I think. Worried that I did something that made you feel bad. Sorry if I did. I didn’t think about it. I’ll do better. We don’t have to be like that. We can just be friends and stuff. I won’t touch you again without asking first.

 **PP:** oh

 **PP:** you mean?

 **JS:** yeah

 **PP:** how did you know?

Wait.

**JS:** what do you mean?

 **PP:** what do you mean, what do I mean?

 **JS:** wait no, what are YOU talking about?

 **PP:** I’m talking about the

 **PP:** sorry I can’t say it

 **JS:** ???

 **PP:** sorry sorry I can’t say it

Peter. Peter, no. No, this wasn’t allowed to happen. Not to Spidey.

He had these amazing eyes. Like the stone. Like Tiger’s eye.

He had these swoops of hair. Waves of hair. Some of them made half-halos around his head all over each other.

He—

**JS:** I’m so sorry

 **PP:** how did you know?

 **JS:** I didn’t until just now

 **PP:** oh

 **PP:** you were talking about something else then.

 **JS:** I thought you wanted me to confirm what I said about the touching.

 **PP:** oh

 **JS:** peter I’m so sorry I didn’t realize. I didn’t even think and now you probably hate me and you should hate me I fucked up so bad I don’t know how else to say sorry

 **PP:** hey it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the one who

 **PP:** sorry

 **JS:** you don’t have to apologize

 **PP:** I just

 **PP:** I mess things up

 **PP:** I messed this up

 **PP:** so sorry

 **JS:** don’t apologize!!

 **PP:** I can’t talk anymore

 **JS:** Hey I didn’t mean to upset you. and you didn’t mess anything up. I was just surprised! And it’s my bad too! Let’s share the fuck up. Can we share the fuck up?

 **PP:** what does that even mean?

 **JS:** it means it’s equal faults.

 **PP:** but it’s not

 **JS:** ITS EQUAL FAULTS

 **PP:** BUT ITS NOT

 **JS:** who hurt you? I’ll kill them

 **PP:** you’re too late my uncle already nearly did.

 **JS:** what, really?

 **PP:** it was a whole thing

 **JS:** not okay to talk about?

 **PP:** NEVER okay to talk about. Ever. Ever ever ever ever ever.

 **JS:** okay, I’m crossing my heart

 **PP:** and hoping to die

 **JS:** okay I’m crossing and hoping.

 **PP:** thanks

 **JS:** sure

Johnny let out a breath that he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

Ben and Sue and Reed were right. This whole time. They were right. Man. How could they know? How could they tell? They’d all barely even spoken to Peter. It didn’t make any sense.

**PP:** new topic

 **PP:** I like you still. I think. I’m pretty sure.

 **JS:** SSDDFSFJS:FFJS:JKKSKSKFSKF

 **PP:** confirm

 **JS:** confirm?

 **PP:** Confirm please.

 **JS:** OH. I like you too!! Like, a lot a lot!

 **PP:** still?

 **JS:** still.

 **JS:** but only if you want that

 **PP:** reading comprehension is not your forte. Scroll up.

 **JS:** oh you like me. Right. you said that. But do you LIKE me like me, or Like just LIKE me??

 **PP:** that word has no meaning any more

 **JS:** do you want to smash faces again

 **PP:** no no too far. Go back

Johnny couldn’t contain the giddiness.

**JS:** is that a no?

 **PP:** I got overwhelmed. Sorry. Never had a kiss before.

 **JS:** that’s okay!!

 **JS:** we don’t have to kiss again. I could hold your hand instead 👀

 **PP:** that’s a weird emoji

 **JS:** answer the question

 **PP:** there isn’t one

 **JS:** answer the statement

 **PP:** lol

 **PP:** maybe hold hands.

 **JS:** fucking YES

 **PP:** MAYBE. No promises. I’ll try not to hit you this time. I’m still sorry.

 **JS:** don’t be sorry in a year I’m going to tell everyone that you punched me in the face first thing. you’ll be sick of it and it’ll be my problem only.

 **PP:** johnny

 **JS:** yeah?

 **PP:** can you shut up for 2 min?

 **JS:** I will do my best

 **PP:** k thanks

 **PP:** I want to hold your hand. But sometimes, I get claustrophobic and stuff. And then I can’t be around people for a while. I liked kissing you. I didn’t mean to hit you. I’m sorry I hit you and ran away like that. I’ll try not to do it again, but I can’t promise that I won’t. Also your family is super scary. The tall one is really really REALLY scary.

 **JS:** reed?

 **PP:** I don’t like him.

 **JS:** ehn I feel that. I’m like 60/40 on him sometimes, but he tries hard.

 **PP:** your sister doesn’t like me.

 **JS:** false

 **JS:** she’s come around. She feels guilty for scaring you.

 **PP:** everything scares me.

 **JS:** not everything.

 **PP:** I can’t talk anymore

 **JS:** okay ttyl then!!

 **PP:** you too

Last message.

Peter went offline.

Johnny felt his shoulders loosen.

And then he felt his heart finally break.

He didn’t think it was his place to tell the others, so he didn’t. It was easier to just ignore them and let them do their thing while he texted.

Peter was happy enough to chat through text.

He was so funny. He sent Johnny some pictures of the pigeons he was roosting with. He’d named them all after Disney minions, and when he ran out, he started naming them after his own rogue gallery.

Johnny realized abruptly that Sue was staring over his shoulder and shoved his phone into his sweater. He mugged at her. She arched an eyebrow back.

“Whatever happened to time and space, space and time?” she asked.

“We talked it out,” Johnny huffed.

“Hm.”

“Hm,” Johnny grunted back.

Sue’s other eyebrow threatened to jump.

“Boyfriend or friend-friend?” she asked.

Johnny’s tiny inner Johnny threw his whole body weight down onto the lid of the jar containing that secret.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he jeered.

Sue’s hand came to hide her mouth like he’d told her to eat shit and die. Johnny wrinkled his nose and showed all his teeth. They remained that way, despite the closing of the front door down the hallway.

“Oh, okay,” Reed’s voice said. He did not enter the room.

“Johnny and Spidey made up,” Sue said from behind her hand.

The footfalls stopped in every direction. If Johnny could have fought the blush, he’d have laid that fucker down flat on the mat.

“We’re just _friends_ ,” he ground out through his teeth.

Reed’s head popped into the room like the nosy asshole he was.

“Just friends?” he repeated. “Like friends-friends, or _friend_ -friends?”

Johnny was leaving. He didn’t have to deal with this.

“Awwww,” Sue cooed. “Invite him over for dinner.”

“You’re all oppressing me,” Johnny called over his shoulder.

“ _Johnny_.”

Sue was never this annoying. She wasn’t allowed to be. There were rules, and the rules were that Johnny, as the youngest sibling, was the only one allowed to be this annoying.

“He doesn’t like you guys,” Johnny said stiffly without looking up from his phone.

“He doesn’t know us yet,” Sue hummed. She flopped down on the couch next to him. Johnny scooted back further into his corner.

“He’s scared of Reed,” he said.

A choke sounded out from the kitchen. Sue didn’t acknowledge it. Ben was in there to dry Reed’s tears if it came to it. He’d live.

“We can lock him in the bathroom,” she said.

Another choke.

“He thinks you don’t like him.”

Sue stiffened, then forced herself to relax.

“He’s a very sweet boy,” she said. “Opinions change. Invite him over.”

No.

Johnny wasn’t going to. Peter didn’t want to come over. And there would be loads of people for him and he’d get overwhelmed again and clamp up like Johnny had noticed him doing fairly often now.

There were a few things guaranteed to set it off.

School was a big one. He didn’t say why or how or anything like that, but the second school came up, Peter shut up and didn’t contribute.

Other vigilantes was another one. Peter would only discuss Daredevil. More than that and he suddenly didn’t know anyone.

Besides those big two, Peter got quiet when asked about how he was. He only ever answered ‘fine.’ It was better and easier to ask him about specific stuff or to let him start talking about whatever random thing he’d experienced that day, because if allowed to talk, Peter would talk.

He’d natter even.

Johnny kind of loved it.

He had a good 14 text messages that were furious about the lack of more blue lighting in Star Wars and how Peter was boycotting the latest film because ‘fuck them.’

He also had a string of texts that were laced together with Peter’s apparent irritation with a particular cab driver who’s license plate number he’d taken down and who he threatened at least once a week with calling animal control on.

Why animal control? Because, Peter snapped, the guy couldn’t be human and there was no UFO hotline listed for the NYC area yet.

So cute. So painfully cute.

Johnny had never been so charmed to read through someone’s months-long feud with a cabbie like this. Most of the other people he texted just wanted to whine about homework and sneakers.

Peter was fresh and new and he just _got_ Johnny.

He had from the start, hadn’t he?

Johnny smashed his face into the nearest couch cushion that he could grab and wheezed into it to suppress the yearning in his chest.

**PP:** hey johnny

Johnny blinked blearily at his phone and swiped his thumb across it. It was 3:25. Peter must have been out on patrol.

**JS:** sup?

 **PP:** are you sleeping?

Not anymore.

**JS:** no I’m up you okay?

 **PP:** maybe.

Johnny sat all the way up in bed.

**JS:** Maybe?

 **PP:** don’t worry about it. sry I’ll ttyl

Oh _hell_ no.

**JS:** where are you?

Peter looked impossibly small under the white floodlights by the garage. Between the two half-fences and the overflowing garbage around him, he might have been mistaken for a trash bag. But of course, he wasn’t.

He was just Peter. Hugging his ribs and make this disgusting noise, but Peter, still.

His hands looked wet.

He didn’t respond to his moniker or his name. And after Johnny wasted a good thirty seconds trying not to renegade on his promise not to touch, his superhero brain took over and he dropped down to his knees.

He apologized to Peter as he pried his loose hands away from his sides.

The suit was torn. There was blood _everywhere_.

Thirty seconds wasted. That sound was coming from Peter’s lungs.

Johnny didn’t often do things like this. Normally he took his victims to the ER and left Reed and his hundreds of doctorates alone and Sue and her brains to sleep. But in that moment, Peter’s lungs weren’t working right and Johnny could barely keep him in his arms because of the blood.

He was so slippery.

Johnny kicked open the door and started shouting.

Ben was the first in. He took one look and swore. He didn’t stop swearing until Reed was in, too, taking Peter out of Johnny’s arms and dropping down to the floor to lay him out on his side. He shouted for a flashlight. He tore off Peter’s mask.

Johnny almost puked.

Peter’s face wasn’t right. His mouth was full of blood. He was choking on it.

That was the last that he saw because Sue’s hands were suddenly over his eyes and she was talking—saying something that Johnny couldn’t hear over the throbbing of his heart.

Peter was dying.

Peter was dying.

They’d just made up. He wanted to hold Johnny’s hand and he was dying and he might never—he might never—

No. Johnny tried to pull Sue’s hands off, but she told him not to.

“It’s bad,” she murmured when he shouted at her and squirmed. “I don’t want you to see him like this.”

To remember him like this.

He begged her to let go.

Peter couldn’t die alone. Someone needed to hold his hand, Sue. He had to be so scared.

“I’ll hold it,” Sue hushed him. “I’m gonna hold it. Here, hold it with me, bend. Keep your eyes closed. Bend, bend. Here it is.”

It was shaking. The skin was colder than the blood on it.

“Hold with me,” Sue said. “He’s gonna be okay. He’s okay, Johnny. You did the right thing. _Reed_.”

Reed said something. Johnny couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t see Peter’s face past Sue’s single hand over his face now, but he could see the hand.

It was nearly white. Twitching softly with Peter’s internal panic. Johnny caught ahold of it and squeezed tight.

A lot happened. First it was just Reed in the living room with Ben who kept moving Peter around for him, and then Reed stopped and panted for a minute and the hand in Johnny’s twitched hard.

Peter made a long, soft, drawn-out noise that wasn’t like any of the ones he’d made before and it made everyone freak out bad.

There were no more arguments, Johnny was shoved out of the room to the sound of tearing fabric. Sue shouted for him to get some clothes for Peter, she didn’t care what they were.

Johnny somehow knew he wasn’t getting them back. He grabbed the first shirt and sweats he could find. After handing them off, he was ejected again from the room, this time, to the sound of Sue talking to Peter so gently it hurt.

Minutes later, there was a loud sound at the door and then there were paramedics. They moved around in a rush of rustling clothes and fast-talking. One of them came over to the door Johnny was hiding behind and knelt down and asked him if he was okay. Another came over and did the same while behind them, Peter’s body, strapped into a portable bed that was way too big for him, was taken out the door.

They had a lot of questions.

Where had he found the boy?

Did he know the boy?

Had he seen anyone with the boy?

How long did it take for him to get the boy home?

Did he see the boy go into any kind of shaking—

“His name’s Peter,” Johnny whispered.

The paramedics fell quiet.

“Is he going to die?”

They said _nothing_.

“We’re going to help him the best that we can,” the first paramedic said. He had rings in the tops of his ears and tattoos peeking out from behind his neck.

Johnny couldn’t see any part of him but the rings.

There was a bloodstain on the floor in the living room. Sue grabbed Johnny around the waist when he came out and pulled him so that he didn’t step in it.

It wasn’t as big as he remembered it being.

“Where did they take him?” he asked her. Reed was in the kitchen with suds up to his elbows.

“Metro Gen,” Sue said.

Great, Johnny was going then—

“His aunt works there.”

The momentum slipped. Johnny’s movements slowed.

“She’ll know him,” Sue said tightly. “She’ll be with him.”

‘When he goes’ was left unsaid.

Johnny tried to breathe in but it felt like there was a stone blocking the bottom of his airways.

“Come here, Johnny,” Sue said.

He didn’t. She came to him.

Her arms went around him and one of them laid from his back across his neck so that its hand pushed the top of his head into her shoulder. He sniffed hard.

Another body—more hands—joined. Then more—heat that Johnny didn’t feel, roughness that Sue’s arms protected him from.

He hiccupped.

Reed’s chest rose and fell against his back.

“’S not _fair_ ,” Johnny choked. Sue’s arms tightened. “We just—we just—started talking again.”

“No,” Ben’s voice said when no one else’s responded. “It ain’t, kid. It really, _really_ ain’t.”

People always described grief as emptiness, but Johnny had been through grief hundreds of times and he could say with confidence ‘fuck your emptiness.’

Grief felt like screaming.

Grief felt like being washed up on a beach and left in the sun for hours on your own.

Grief concentrated itself in your head and made it too heavy to lift. It turned you into that Greek God standing at the bottom of his mountain with his forehead pressed against a boulder that would never, _ever_ stop rolling back onto him.

That god took a moment down there to breathe and to grieve at the way that life ground on, careless and ignorant of his own endless suffering.

Grief felt like that.

Abandonment. Anger—no, _fury_. Hollowness that wasn’t emptiness because it was filled with all these vapors of a thousand emotions too shaky and volatile to name.

Sue came into Johnny’s room and climbed onto the bed with him. He was too big for this, he always was, but she did it anyways every time.

And it helped. If he was honest, it helped.

She whacked him in the arm until he lifted his unbearably heavy head and resettled it against her collarbone.

“I have news,” she said.

Johnny didn’t want it.

No, he did.

No, he didn’t.

No, he did.

UGH.

“Peter’s out of the hospital.”

No, HE DEFINITELY DID.

Sue laughed and yanked him back down before trapping him with her other arm.

“Listen,” she said.

Johnny was listening.

“No, you’re not. Listen. Listen, listen, listen.”

UGH. Fine. Okay, he was listening.

“He’s in a lot of pain. Was in ICU for half of the night before coming down from a mad fever and getting all that shit out of his lungs. He’s got some other pretty severe injuries. It turns out he took a blow meant for someone else—the folks at the hospital think he’s a civilian who got caught up in a vigilante feud, which Mrs. Parker is telling us is not that far from the truth. But, in terms of things that you need to know: he’s very grumpy and his jaw is wired shut for right now, so he can’t talk really well, okay?”

Okay?

But Peter was okay?

“He’s puffy and sad,” Sue said like she was endeared. “But yeah, he’s okay. His auntie says that he’s got a healing factor that’ll take care of worst of his problems. She wanted me to tell you ‘thank you.’ She says that she’s in your debt twice over now, so she’s thinking you might even have visiting rights at this point.”

WHAT?

Did that mean--?

Did that mean--?

Did it mean? Did it mean? Did it mean?

Sue smiled.

“It does,” she said.

Peter’s home was _beautiful_. It was everything that Johnny thought a home should be. Everything was wood and nothing matched and the whole place was covered in patterns and greens and oranges and blues and whites—a whole rainbow of colors.

It made the Baxter Building feel cold.

Mrs. Parker asked him and Sue to take off their shoes by the door. There was a rack there that was covered with them. Some thick-soled nurse shoes, black and pink. Two pairs of sneakers, both with their laces dripping down to the shelf beneath them.

Peter would wear those again.

Johnny put his own sneakers underneath them. They looked too new and clean there.

“Okay, so he’s going to try to make a lot of noise,” Mrs. Parker briefed him. “But he’s not going to be successful and he’s going to be mad about it. If you can’t understand him, you can text him—it’s probably the easiest way for now. Or else there’s a whiteboard that he’s got in there with him.”

Johnny was vibrating.

Mrs. Parker looked at home in this house, no longer wearing scrubs but a big heavy striped cardigan with grey tights.

“Ready?” Mrs. Parker asked.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

“That way. First door. On your marks. Get set. Go.”

He took off.

Peter’s room was small and his bed was really close to the door so it took no time at all to jump in there with him.

Peter made a muffled sound of surprise and then another louder one when he’d finished blinking and recognized Johnny. He grabbed at him and pulled at him until he Johnny was lying nearly on top of him. Johnny put his weight on his elbow and laughed through the face-pinching and the ear-twisting.

“You look like shit,” he beamed into Peter’s dark eyes.

They went wide and then the brows above them came down like guillotines.

Peter made a ruckus loud enough to make his crows proud. To Johnny’s surprise, he didn’t have too many bandages on the outside of his face. Just bruises of all sorts of colors.

“Where’re your strings, puppet boy?” he asked.

He jerked back from the hand aimed for his face and then Peter tipped his head back and curled up his lips. Two of his bottom teeth were awkward, raw, and displaced. There was a cage of silver wires that held them in with the rest of pearly whites around his whole smile.

“Ew,” Johnny said.

Peter made a series of little huffing sounds—a laugh. Hmmmmm. Good. Very good.

“Can you talk?” Johnny asked.

“Canna mof m’faesh,” Peter said from behind his teeth-cage.

Ah.

“It’s not the worst,” Johnny told him. “I can still understand you. Your auntie told me to text.”

“HHHHHHHH.”

Johnny snickered.

“I tol’ her I shpeak Moron,” Peter slurred. “Bu’ she don’ belief me.”

Johnny snickered harder. His breath might’ve gotten caught on a hitch. Just a little one.

Peter was warm underneath him. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t telling Johnny to move.

He was still here. Safe. Alive.

Peter’s hand pushed at his cheek and Johnny scrubbed at his eyes before looking up and managing a ‘hm?’

“Wade shays shorry,” Peter said quietly.

Wade?

“It wash shuppose’ to be for ‘im.”

Wait, who was Wade?

Peter blinked at him.

“Deadpool?” he asked.

Dead…dead…DEADPOOL, PETER?

PETER, YOU’RE FUCKING AROUND WITH _DEADPOOL_?

Peter shuddered through more of those huffing noises, shaking with them as he grabbed at Johnny’s head and dug his fingers in.

“M’ frien’,” he said.

“NOT friends,” Johnny lectured. “No. NO. Bad spider.”

Peter squirmed with giggles and then winced hard and put a palm against his face. Johnny eased off him and nudged at him until he settled back against the pil—uh? Snorlax? And what was this rabbit thing?

Nevermind, hold onto those thoughts for now.

“No Deadpools,” Johnny repeated. “That’s how you get killed, Pete.”

Peter rubbed the side of his face against his big Snorlax pillow to get his hair out of his eyes and then shrugged.

“M’ frien’,” he repeated.

“You’re bad at listening,” Johnny sighed.

“’E p’otectsh me.”

Johnny stopped. He lifted his head.

“He does?” he asked quietly.

Peter blinked at him slowly and then nodded once.

“Frien’,” he said. “’E’s sho mad at the man who hi’ me, I think ‘e hurt ‘im ba’.”

Oh. That was something, then. Maybe?

“’E wash here afore you.”

“Deadpool came _here?_ ” Johnny asked.

Peter nodded.

“Brough’ me home fo’ May,” he said.

“Deadpool did?”

“Mm.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Frien’.”

“Peter, you wouldn’t know a friend if they punched you in the face.”

Peter wheeze-laughed.

“No, I kno’ ‘em ‘ _caushe_ the’ punch me in the faesh,” he said.

God help him, this was what Johnny was getting mixed up with. This was the choice that he’d made.

“I was so scared,” he whispered.

Peter’s eyebrows jumped.

“I though you were gonna die. I tried to hold your hand,” Johnny said, “But Sue wouldn’t let me. There were paramedics, and you were making this sound, and she—”

A hand pressed into his shoulder. Its palm was hot. Johnny looked up from it to find Peter’s tiger’s eyes glossy with liquid. His breath hitched and Johnny’s internal klaxon was ready to flip on when the fingers of that palm dug into his shoulder.

“’ou came,” Peter said through his harsh breathing. “When I needed ‘ou, ‘ou came.”

Johnny dropped his eyes.

“Uh-uh. Look a’ me.”

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to see Peter cry.

“Johnny, please?”

Johnny couldn’t say no. He lifted his face again.

Peter’s hand moved from his shoulder. His knuckles were cool as they scraped down Johnny’s jaw.

“Las’ time I needed a ‘ero, no one came,” Peter slurred softly. “Sho I hadda make me into ‘un.”

One tear slipped out from its nest with the others and traveled down to hide under Peter’s chin. Johnny felt his own eyes wanting to follow suit.

“Bu’ thish time, you did it fo’ me,” Peter hiccupped.

“I’m sorry I was late,” Johnny said.

“You’re no’ la’e, you shaved both me an’ Ben now.”

Johnny sniffed hard.

“I wish I could’ve saved both of you sooner,” he said.

Peter considered him and then pulled at his cheek until Johnny awkwardly shuffled in closer.

Peter’s lips were cold like they were the last they pressed into Johnny’s. They didn’t want to close all the way around his silver cage, but that was okay.

It was all okay.

He pulled back and fluttered his eyes back up and Johnny did, too, now with all kind of traitors on his own face.

He didn’t know what to say, but not to worry. His mouth did.

“You gonna slap me again?”

“BOYS. What on—Peter Benjamin, I know you’ve got better manners than that. Let him go, you’re injured and I don’t know his insurance provider. Bloodlust only on Totoro, remember. Thank you.”

Sue’s laugh was nearly as good at Peter’s muffled one. These sounds promised that everyone was safe.

Everyone was happy.

That was where Johnny needed them to be.

It took maybe a week before Johnny’s phone was blowing up with texts in the middle of class. He had to hide it under the desk to see the ruckus.

**PP:** IM FREE

 **JS:** no more birdman?

 **PP:** Birdman no longer. You may call me Spiderdick to your heart’s content

 **JS:** gross! I won’t!

 **PP:** do it coward

 **JS:** I’m in Math

 **PP:** fuck math I’m at the DOCTOR and I have been cleared for semi-solids. Take THAT Francis

 **JS:** who’s francis?

 **PP:** I said nothing

 **PP:** come have semi-solids with me after school. Potatoes count.

 **JS:** I caaaaaaaaaan’t. Have work.

 **PP:** so do I. nothing matters. come HAVE FRENCH FRIES

“Johnny.”

He looked up to see everyone in class staring at him. Mr. Young gazed down upon him.

“Want to share with everyone what’s so funny?” he asked.

Johnny blinked.

“My love interest was in an accident and had to get his jaw wired shut,” he deadpanned. “He just got it all off and forgot everyone else is in school so is screaming about French fries.”

There was silence followed by absolute mayhem. Mr. Young couldn’t control it.

The word was out now.

Mr. Young dropped his hands fruitlessly onto his hips and turned back to Johnny while everyone else texted their friends and tweeted at Mach speed.

“I don’t know how you cope with this,” he said, gesturing around him.

Johnny ignored this question.

“Am I an enabler if I buy him French fries?” he asked.

Mr. Young sighed.

“Save that for marriage, Johnny,” he said. “Don’t text in my class.”


End file.
